Twelve Years of Radarsat-1 Calibration: Operations Experience and Lessons Learned

This paper examines the calibration performance of the RADARSAT-1 products since spacecraft commissioning in 1996, and briefly reassesses the calibration ground systems and methodologies in the light of the mission´s twelve-year calibration experience and data record. Choices made in the design, deployment and implementation of the RADARSAT-1 calibration plan are retrospectively explored in the context of successor missions, and more specifically RADARSAT-2, which was declared operational on April 25 2008. Preparations at the Canadian Space Agency calibration monitoring activities for RADARSAT-2 are also presented.